Skyla Whitaker, 11, & Taylor Placker 13 - Found Murdered - #1

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I just didn't have anything to add to your comment, kahskye! Don't feel ignored. :blowkiss: It's something they should look into, most definitely.

txsvicki, can you tell me what a bar ditch is? I don't have a clue what that might be! TIA!


It's ditches to the sides of roads. I guess for drainage during rains.
 
I posted this earlier and feel like I was totally ignored. Both of these girls were the only girl in their classroom. The ratio of students was low at only 1 girl to 10 boys according to 2006. The ratio of boys might have been higher now. We're talking a real rural area and I wonder if they were targeted for some reason. The girls were known to frequently walk this road, so I suspect the killer was waiting for them. I know I might be reaching, but it might be something to look into.


Maybe the local LE is thinking something similar since they're warning parents to watch their kids and that it is probably someone known. Maybe a shooting similar to students shooting in schools?
 
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]taxi read this:[/FONT]

tzsvicki thanks, you've expanded my vocabulary
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dirt-moving methods improve through years [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by Delbert Trew[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]F[/FONT]ew readers under 60 years of age will understand this statement: 'We installed a tin horn in our bar ditch.'

A tin horn is a corrugated, galvanized metal culvert installed alongside roadways to let floodwater pass through. I know this fact, but I don't have a clue as to why a crooked gambler appearing in many western stories is called a tinhorn. Any ideas?

The slang term bar ditch supposedly comes from barrow ditch when hand labor and wheelbarrows were used to haul dirt dug from a ditch and dumped into the roadbed to raise it above the surrounding terrain. Another version states dirt borrowed from a ditch and placed on the roadbed gave birth to the term bar ditch.

Improving wagon tracks, sufficient for wagons and buggies, into raised, dragged-smooth roads came with the advent of the automobile. Such road labor was first done under the Statute Labor Law, which required property owners living adjacent to or near public roads to donate a certain amount of hours each year to the upkeep and maintenance of the road. You could work yourself with your teams and equipment, hire someone to do the work for you, of if you refused to participate, your proportionate cost would be added to your annual taxes.

My father recalled that the first winter after he arrived in Ochiltree County in 1928-29 he lived on the Calvin Flowers farm some 20 miles south of Perryton. To make a living, he borrowed a work team, walking plow and fresno and then contracted with the county to dirt-up tin horns along the highway bar ditches.

This was long before today's Highway 70 and 83 when the road between Perryton and Canadian went south by Buller's Store, turned east at the 21-mile corner and on to Taz and Notla rural schools. Each day his team dragged the equipment to a site containing a tin horn. First, he plowed the bar ditches on both sides to accumulate loose dirt. Next he hooked his team to the fresno and moved the loose dirt to the sides of the culvert. All the plowing and dirt moving was done by walking behind the teams with reins in hand and guiding the equipment. When finished moving dirt, he leveled the road by hand with shovel and rake until the site was smooth and safe to use. He then chained his plow behind the fresno and traveled to the next site.

Dirt-moving equipment of the time provided little choice. There were 'slips' that loaded then slipped along the ground and had to be tipped upward to dump. Drags and hurtles were used for short hauls and moving grain with the operator wailing behind holding on to the wooden handles. Later, a tumble-bug / fresno combination became available using a jerk-rope for dumping and loading. This device came about after tractors arrived on the farms.

Though crude and simple by today's standards, each of these dirt-moving inventions were a big improvement over a pick, shovel and wheelbarrow.


© Delbert Trew
[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
"It's All Trew"
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]September 19, 2006 Column
E-mail: trewblue@centramedia.net.
[/FONT]
 
Oh, interesting. I never knew those had that name! TIA.

Now I'll have to find that video of the road to see if they had that.
 
Oh, interesting. I never knew those had that name! TIA.

Now I'll have to find that video of the road to see if they had that.

When they showed the scene on the Greta show, it looked like there were shallow ditches next to the dirt road. They are filled with mud right now.
 
Touia Duncan is out there if you google.

ETA: Not that she has anything to do with this crime, just saying.
 
Has this been posted? Pictures of the girls and of Taylor's uncle and grandparents.
http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,4194,00.html#5_0

This story breaks my heart. Taylor reminds me of my daughter. She had the same smile as my daughter does. My daughter even has the same shirt (the GO AWAY Get off my Planet) that Taylor had on in the picture of her and her family. My poor child has asked me what was wrong all day since I was giving her more hugs then usual and not letting her out of my sight. The last story to hit me this hard was when little Samantha Runyon was taken and killed.

MM ~
 
"Tire tracks preserved before heavy rains hit the area late Sunday show that a vehicle traveled down the road, then turned around near the ditch where the girls were found."
http://newsok.com/clues-sought-in-slaying-of-girls-in-weleetka/article/3255420/?pg=2

You know, it's possible that some local or locals driving by shot the girls just for kicks.

I wonder if the vehicle was travelling towards or up behind the girls before it turned around, and in what direction away from there it would be going when it left the crime.
 
I posted this earlier and feel like I was totally ignored. Both of these girls were the only girl in their classroom. The ratio of students was low at only 1 girl to 10 boys according to 2006. The ratio of boys might have been higher now. We're talking a real rural area and I wonder if they were targeted for some reason. The girls were known to frequently walk this road, so I suspect the killer was waiting for them. I know I might be reaching, but it might be something to look into.

They probably hung out with mostly boys then. Hmmm. Coud have been an acquaintance that they could identify.
I wonder if they ran and were gunned down as they tried to get away or if they were oblivious to what was coming. I hope the latter by fear the former. :(:(
 
One convicition for a child, who I will not name, a protective order was granted against Christopher. This is posted on a document open to the public.

He has 3 traffic court convicitions.

And this EMERGENCY PROTECTIVE ORDER ISSUED GRANTED. COURT DATE 9-9-05
MINOR CHILD , Plaintiff
I am working on my computer (thanks for reminding me to clear my caches whoever that was! Hugs) so maybe I will be able to access OSCN as I am still having trouble with it. Great find, Philamena! Worth checking into for certain. :)

You guys were busy last nite after I turned in! Has anyone looked to see if either girl had a myspace or facebook site? (They could have gotten on the computers at school.)
 
I posted this earlier and feel like I was totally ignored. Both of these girls were the only girl in their classroom. The ratio of students was low at only 1 girl to 10 boys according to 2006. The ratio of boys might have been higher now. We're talking a real rural area and I wonder if they were targeted for some reason. The girls were known to frequently walk this road, so I suspect the killer was waiting for them. I know I might be reaching, but it might be something to look into.
I am sorry, Kahskye! I was in a fog yesterday. I promise we weren't ignoring you. :) It is worth checking out, too.

I guess it doesn't surprise me that she could have been the only girl in her class in that small school. However, seeing her photo on the cheerleading squad, I would think there are others now.

At the age of 13 years old, the wrong person could have been pursuing her or visa versa. When the selection is so small in a rural area...the idea that the "competition" for the cheerleader and outgoing girl could be fierce. It isn't out of the realm of possibilities that she angered a female rival or a male resulting in a shooting. Jealousy is one of the oldest motives for murder.

While illegal, in a small farm community it is not out of the norm for kids as young as 12 or 13 yo to be allowed to drive farm trucks on backroads as they work with the parents tending cattle and fields...so this doesn't neccessarily have to be adults we are looking for. Also, it is normal for guns to be hanging in the cab of many vehicles and most kids are raised to know how to handle them if they work to kill snakes, hunt, etc.

LOL You had to go to all that trouble to figure out a bar ditch. Funny! While the ditches look shallow there...the bar ditch is probably over another few feet from the sides of the road. They are designed to help the roads not to flood and be a muddy impassable mess when it rains. They are usually overgrown with grasses, but actually rather deep allowing for the tin horns and cattle guards to allow access onto the side roads and driveways.
 
Maybe everyone knows this but me, but it would seem they were not killed on a road next to open fields, but next to what seems to be woods.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080610_12_A1_hThetw874180

Choate said authorities still are trying to determine if the girls were killed by someone driving a car along the road "or whether someone just walked out of the woods and shot them."

Which, to me, mean something hidden was going on in those woods that the girls accidentally stumbled upon.
 
Both sides of the road along there were overgrown with brush probably running the length of that stretch of road. The reporter from Tulsa mentioned they were thick like a forest. This isn't unusual in OK. The clearings for farming or ranching are beyond the thickets. The county is responsible for the road and sides of the road so they are not cleared.

I would hope that LE searched the area beyond there to find out if any marijuana patches were active or if there were signs of a meth lab. A lot of rolling meth labs (people making meth in vehicles) exist here due to the crackdown from LE.
 
Here's and article about Graham School. One article I read must have been wrong. This was states that Placker was the only girl in her sixth-grade class along with four boys, and Whitaker was in a fifth-grade class with four girls and one boy.

http://newsok.com/around-weleetka-shock-but-no-answers/article/3255838/?

The Graham School District only covers about 48 square miles, which includes about 600 residents. The K-12 school has about 100 students. Chancey and Wanda Mankin, the elementary school principal, aren't concerned about the numbers but rather the children within the numbers.
 
I wonder where they found so many cheerleaders?! I guess it is comprised of all the girls in the school. Tryouts not needed...just be female.
 
IMO, some pretty specific things were said about the POI's. More info about the LE Backpeddle...

http://newsok.com/article/3255855/

(snip)

It was the rampant rumors and "misinformation” surrounding the fatal shootings of Taylor Dawn Paschal-Placker, 13, and Skyla Jade Whitaker, 11, that led to a time-to-set-the-record-straight news conference Tuesday in front of the Okfuskee County Courthouse in Okemah. Part of the confusion apparently came from remarks Sheriff Jack Choate made during media interviews. Choate, who has been in office two years, said Monday that his office had "suspects” in the case. He later said his office had identified "persons of interest.”
 
In other words, they are saying the Sheriff is inexperienced and talked too much. I disagree. I think he was stating what they were going on at the time and to me...it was refreshing to hear LE be candid about it. OSBI takes their cues from the FBI so it doesn't surprise me they want to go the old route of playing deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to releasing any information.

By now, everyone knows that I feel the honest and open route is the better way to go in an investigation so the public can assist in finding the perps. This one, in particular, should be more open because of the small town scenario. With their field of suspects being limited, to broaden the search via media makes more sense. Someone in another part of the state or even another part of the country might connect the dots for them.
 
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